The Spring is Sprung.

The spring is sprung, the grass is ris
I wonder where the birdies is.

Not surprisingly, a lot of people are blogging about spring at the moment. I want to join in because spring is probably my favourite season. The problem is that everything is late in Britain this year, evidently due to the unusually cold winter we had. The snowdrops are still much in evidence on the embankments around my garden, and they’re usually long gone by now. The primroses are struggling to put on any sort of show, the crocuses were prolific enough but quite short lived, the hyacinths are only now beginning to make their entrance, and I have no daffodils open yet – almost there, but not quite. Still, the shrubs and fruit bushes do have plenty of buds, so things are beginning to move.

What I have noticed over the last week is that the birds have been feeding a lot less voraciously on the bird table. That saves me money, but more importantly it tells me that there must be a lot more natural food about. No doubt they will start to peck holes in my pockets again once they have chicks to feed. They seem to compete to see who can fit the most rolled oats into their beaks before racing off to some unseen nest in a hedgerow not far away.

I still have the two birds that follow me around the garden when I go out with the feed pots, both wanting their own private little pile. One is a robin who’s been with me since two winters ago. He’s the one who watches me through my office window occasionally. It usually means that the bird table is empty. And during cold spells in the winter, I often find him sitting right outside my door in the morning. He comes very close when I put some breakfast on the ground for him, and he makes full face eye contact with me.

The other is a female blackbird. She rarely comes closer than about six feet, even in cold spells when she’s obviously hungry; and she only ever looks at me sideways. She appeared this morning as soon as I started throwing some oats and mixed seed down by the hedge at the bottom of the garden. She seemed hungrier than usual, for some reason. ‘Hello Mrs B,’ I said in my best talking-to-birds voice that my mother used to use. ‘Cold night, was it?’ For once I felt a powerful vibe coming back from her. It said ‘Bog off. I’m busy.’

So I did.